Marauder's Mistake
Chapter 1: Potions Mishap
The potions lab was silent except for the odd smattering of conversation between students. Fourteen year old Severus Snape as usual was very focused in class; however, his focus was on the bright red spill of hair a few desks ahead of him. Lily was carefully adding powdered scarab beetles to her potion, and he tried to tell himself that he was keeping an eye on her just to make sure she didn't get hurt if she made a mistake. The fact that Lily had never made a mistake had no bearing on his train of thought.
Sigh… she's so beautiful. He thought to himself. His potion was nearly complete, and he stirred it counter-clockwise lazily, daydreaming about the picnic he and Lily had planned that afternoon. He was imagining how the sun would light up her hair, making it seem like it was on fire. So it wasn't too surprising that he didn't notice Black passing his table quietly and swiftly slip something into his cauldron. Nor did he notice when it went from a thick dark blue to a frothy pale yellow.
"Did you slip it in?!" James hissed eagerly as Black returned to their table.
"Yeah yeah, it was easy. Old Snivelly's of in la-la land again." He snickered, taking his seat.
Both boys watched in anticipation from the back of the room. They had noticed that the wrinkle-erasing potion they were working on in class today was one ingredient away from being the de-aging potion a few pages into the book. Naturally both boys had had the same stroke of genius at once, that is of course to change Severus's potion to the de-aging one. The book said that once the stirring was completed the potion would form a cloud of mist that must be avoided unless the mixer wanted to be de-aged accidentally. However, since the potion they were supposed to be working on was not shown as having such a reaction both boys knew that Severus wouldn't be expecting it, and therefore would be caught by the mist.
"When will it go off Sirius?" James said impatiently.
"Any minute now, according to the book." Sirius muttered back, peeking at the pages beneath their directions for the day. Both boys hunched over their own cauldrons, peering at the back of their Slytherin classmate.
Severus sighed again; wait a minute… what's that noise? He looked down at his potions work in horror, seeing the seething frothing canary yellow liquid within his cauldron. What the hell!! It-it was fine before! Severus sputtered as he backed away from the table, bumping into the one behind him. He wasn't fast enough though, as the potion bubbled over the rim of the cauldron it formed a thick cloud that rose up and engulfed him.
"Augh!" he exclaimed as he was lost in the heavy yellow cloud.
Lily Evans snapped around when she heard Severus yelp in surprise and… fright? That couldn't be good; he was always so excellent at potions, doing his work in silent efficiency. Lily was stricken when she saw the massive cloud that had taken the place of her friend.
"Severus?!"
She yelled as she dashed forward, in strong contrast the rest of the class which was doing everything to get away from whatever was going on. She stopped in front of his table as the mist sank down and cleared. Here was the cauldron, the neatly organized bottles and tubes of ingredients, and the pestle and bowl for grinding the scarab beetles… but no Severus.
"Severus! Wh-where are you?" she called frantically, a thousand possibilities of what could have happened crossing her mind, none of them good.
"I here Lily." piped up a tiny voice from behind the table.
Lily and the rest of the class slowly peered around the table Severus Snape had previously been working at. Standing there in a now oversized robe was a four year old boy with shoulder length raven hair and dark eyes. He grinned up at Lily toothily. "Hi."
"Sev?" she squeaked.
"Yup. Tha's my name; an Lily's your name." he said patiently, as though she might not understand.
"Hey, check it out! Snivellus is a midget and a greasy git!" announced James as he came around the other side of the desk. Sirius joined him, grinning. Actually, both boys were quite nervous, the de-aging potion should have only taken four years off the Slytherin, not ten.
The little boy turned towards them with some difficulty, due to the robes pooled around him, and looked up at them. He didn't remember these big boys like he remembered his Lily, but he decided that he did not like them, and were they laughing at him?! His eyes began to water, a fact that was not helped when the rest of the class crowded in for a look.
"Oh come on Snivellus, you aren't going to cry are you." Sirius smirked in a derisive tone.
"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
The loud scream from the mini-Snape finally had professor Slughorn rushing to the back of his class. "What in bloody hell is going- MERLIN'S BEARD!"
His best student was now sitting on the floor bawling his little heart out while everyone stood in shock, even the two Marauders.
Lily Evans jumped forward and scooped him up at once, Severus latching onto her neck and burying his face into her shoulder.
"How could you! Well, congratulations James Potter and Sirius Black! You have succeeded in making a toddler cry!" she snarled at them, squeezing the little Black bundle in her arms. Both boys flinched at her tone; and the rest of the class, who had been laughing at Severus's misfortune, now was very quiet.
"Lily, am I a sniv'us?" a little voice whimpered in her ear.
"Of course not." She said vehemenantly.
"Miss Evans, is that… I mean, that's Severus Snape?" Slughorn asked, his face looking ashen. He'd never had a fourth year student's potion go this badly wrong.
"Yes professor, I think it is." She said as the little raven head lifted off her shoulder and looked at the professor curiously. Severus wiped his eyes on his sleeve.
"You're really big mister, are you Santa?"
Everyone went dead silent. No one would have dared to comment on the rotund professor's weight, and none of them thought they'd see the day that Severus would insult his head of house.
"Um… no, no I'm not. Severus, how old are you?" the professor asked, trying to keep a level voice as his face flushed. This child had better be the age he looks or so help me…
"I this many!" he squeaked happily, holding up four chubby fingers.
Lily let out a sigh she didn't know she was holding. "Well, that's a lot!" she smiled at her now tiny friend before addressing the potions master. "What could have happened professor?"
Slughorn looked at the bright yellow and frothy concoction in Snape's cauldron. "It can't be!" he exclaimed, recognizing it immediately. "This is the Second Childhood potion, it's very advanced!"
Lily shook her head and flipped through the potions book one handed, the other being occupied by Severus, until she found the correct page. Her eyes scanned the ingredients swiftly; they matched almost perfectly with the wrinkle-erasing potion they had been doing for the class. Perfectly, except for the daisy roots that had to be added, that was. Lily looked over the ingredients on Severus's desk while the little boy himself sat happily upon her hip, sucking his thumb.
There were no daisy roots to be seen.
James and Sirius had started to inch away after Evans had chewed them out, and were inching even faster now that they saw her scanning the Slytherin's desk. Slughorn might not suspect tampering, but Evans would, and what's more she'd know exactly who'd done the deed.
"JAMES POTTER! SIRIUS BLACK!"
Severus sat on his desktop, sucking his left thumb and watching his Lily chase the two mean boys around the class, attempting to slap them with a potions book.
He swung his legs and stared owlishly at the somewhat ridicules scene as the fat man tried to get Lily to calm down. Meanwhile a cluster of girls were cooing and petting at him, trying to get him to smile instead of looking bewildered.
He rewarded them with a lopsided grin; although it was more because his Lily had caught the boy she called James right across the seat of his pants with the schoolbook.
"OW! Evans what the hell?!"
"It's the least you deserve you terrible bully! What if the mixture had gone wrong and Sev had been hurt?!" she had them cornered now, both boys careful to keep their backs to the wall. "As it is he's a toddler! And the counter-potion will take at least a month to brew properly! It's the week before Christmas what will we do with him?"
"Send him to his mummy; I'm sure she'll love coddling her ickle baby again."
SMACK! The potions text caught James on his thigh. "You're such a toerag!!!"
Lily stormed back to Severus and scooped him up with a huff. "I'm going to see Dumbledore professor Slughorn." She said in a clipped voice, turning to glare at the two Marauders. "And I'm going to tell him everything." With that ominous statement, she swept out of the lab.
To be continued…